Google Publishes Its Search Quality Rating Guidelines For First Time

As part of the How Search Works interactive infographic Google released today, they have decided to publish their search quality rating guidelines publicly to the world.

You can access the 43-page PDF document over here. It was most recently updated November 2, 2012.

As you may remember, the document has been leaked back in 2008, 2001, 2012 and other times, when finally they said they were considering going public with that document. Today, they have.

Search quality raters are third-party people Google hires through a third-party agency to rate the search results. It is not used to rank search results, but rather, to measure the quality of the search results. We have interviewed a search quality rater in the past.

Between the search quality rating guidelines and the SEO starter guide published and available from Google – you should have plenty to read to brush up on your SEO.

Related Stories:

• Google Releases Interactive Infographic: “How Search Works”
• Google May Go Public With Its Human Search Quality Rater Guidelines
• Google Search Quality Raters Instructions Gain New “Page Quality” Guidelines
• Video: Google Speaks About Search Quality Raters
• An Interview With A Google Search Quality Rater
• Google Quality Raters Can’t Cause Site To Drop In Rankings
• Google Quality Raters Can Rate Your Site Without Seeing It
• Google & Human Quality Reviews: Old News Returns

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on social media at @rustybrick, +BarrySchwartz and Facebook. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio and disclosures, click over here.